


The secret

by wild_water



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-02
Updated: 2013-02-02
Packaged: 2017-11-27 20:42:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 424
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/666290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wild_water/pseuds/wild_water
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>There’s that old, black bat living in the Potters' attic</p>
            </blockquote>





	The secret

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Секрет](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/16728) by бурная вода, translator - sassynails. 



> _Though, I think it's only proper that we keep his secret now._  
>   
>  _Ovsey Driz_  
>   
>   
> 

There’s that old, black bat living in the Potters' attic. His nasty temper has earned him the name of Fiend.  
  
Bats doze off during the day and fly out to hunt at night. The Bat is off about his business at dawn and comes back before afternoon tea. Where he spends his daylight hours is a secret, but not the biggest one he keeps.  
  
James, Al and Lily know the Bat’s secret, but they’re not telling it. Who, otherwise, would whisper ancient legends about the Founders and the ghosts of Hogwarts into their eager ears, teach them things they won’t find in any books and shoo away their fears when Dad’s off auroring and Mom’s away businessing? The one thing James, Al and Lily do not know is that it’s not the old Bat’s biggest secret.  
  
Kreacher knows Fiend’s secret, but he isn’t the one for kissing and telling either. Who else would stock up on Dittany, Pepper-Up and Dreamless Sleep, of which there’s a constant need in his masters’ house? No, even the small make-shift lab in the corner of the attic is not the Bat’s greatest secret.  
  
An Auror’s job isn’t quite the safest occupation in the world, and Harry usually gives a heads-up whenever he is late working or goes to tie one on with friends after the shift. And Fiend always knows when Harry gets home. But the sharp hearing bats can boast isn’t exactly a big dark secret, is it?  
  
And if Harry is late, someone starts pacing in the attic and then a bat begins flying around the house in frantic circles. Sometimes, though it doesn’t happen that often, Kreacher is sent to investigate what has happened. And then there are ancient tomes being sifted through page by page in the attic, and a cauldron with this or that obscure potion for a wounded Harry is simmering over the fire. But an immense library, a laboratory and a cozy bedroom all fitted in a small attic is rather the Potters’ house secret and not the Bat’s.  
  
The Bat’s greatest and most guarded secret, the one that can’t be weaseled out of him even under Crucio or Veritaserum, the one he keeps hidden from his own self is this: more than anything in the world, he loves it when on a Sunday evening Harry comes up to his attic and there, in silence, scratches tenderly Fiend’s slim black neck with bite marks turned all gray.


End file.
